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Recovery Christian Center Daily Meditation - 5/14/12 - Real Husbands

"And further, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything. For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church. And we are members of his body. As the Scriptures say, “A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.” This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one. So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband." Ephesians 5:21-33 NLT

Since we've been talking about relationships it is appropriate to talk about the most misquoted and misrepresented relationship in the bible, that of the husband and wife. It seems that a lot of husbands remember that wives are to submit to their husbands but forget that husbands are supposed to love their wives like Christ loved the church. In other words if a husband expects submission, he is responsible to create an atmosphere that would make her willing to submit. That atmosphere includes love, respect, God centeredness, faith, trust,nurturing, and security. Very simply a man who can't provide those thing shouldn't get married and if he is married, he ought to understand why its hard for her to submit. The reality is just bringing ur check home on Friday, paying the bills and sitting on your throne waiting to be served isn't enough. Real husband are kings because they treat their wives like queens. He cares for her, respects her, is faithful to her, considers her opinions, prays with her and for her, and makes God and the love of God the center of their home. He doesn't make decisions without consulting God and her. Even if you are the king, the king has advisers and the queen should be the number one adviser. Lets be real,why wouldn't you want to consult the person that knows you and all your insecurities, issues, and strengths second only to God? We also need to understand that there is no biblical command for the wife to love her husband. It is the husband who is commanded to love his wife as Christ loved the church up to and including giving his life for her? Lastly submission is not blind obedience or servitude, its respect for a husbands biblical authority and his love and submission to God. If you aren't walking in His love and submission to His will, how can you expect that of her?

Recovery Christian Center Daily Meditation - Loving Relationships With Others

"Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.......
We love each other because he loved us first. If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a Christian brother or sister, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see? And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love their Christian brothers and sisters." 1 John 4:7-12, 19-21 NLT

The text tells us that the most tangible evidence of a right relationship with God shows through in how we treat others. The proof that we have bought into God's unconditional love is us loving others unconditionally. How can we talk about the love of God without demonstrating that love? When the lost soul comes in proximity with Christ and recovery, it will very likely be the love he experiences from other believers that becomes the deciding factor in his surrender. He doesn't need judgement, or condemnation, or rejection. He needs love, acceptance and hope.

We also need to demonstrate that love in our relationships with other believers. Our job is to love and encourage one another, and even when we are lead to pull someone up, it should be done tactfully, patiently and with loving kindness. The person should see that we're correcting them because we care, not because we're being self righteous. We need to show the same forgiveness, love, compassion, mercy, grace and acceptance that Christ has shown us and continues to show us when we make mistakes. As a wise pastor once said, "Folk don't care how much you know until they know how much you care."

***The Lord has led us to spend the next several posts focusing on relationships beginning with our most important relationship, the one we have with God***

Recovery Christian Center Daily Meditation - 5/10/12 - God's Perfect Love

"And God has given us His Spirit as proof that we live in Him and He in us. Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now testify that the Father sent His Son to be the Savior of the world. All who confess that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in His love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face Him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world. Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced His perfect love." 1 John 4:13-18 NLT

Like any relationship, our relationship with God is based in love and respect. The difference is God's love is perfect and ours can only begin to be perfect if we are in relationship with Him. Real love isn't possible unless its based in a spiritual connection with God. All we have to do is look at our relationship prior to coming to Christ and into recovery and see how this is true. Prior to a relationship with God, our relationships were mostly selfish and self serving but our relationship with God is not about us its about loving Him for Who He is.

When we were new to Christ and recovery our relationship with Him was probably more selfish either being motivated by what He could do for us or as the text says, "fear of judgement", but as we grow and our love becomes more Christ like we begin to see that our relationship with God changes to so hat we get to know God for Who He is and not what He can do. We also be come more secure in who we are in Him so that we are less consumed with the fear of His judgement.

As this relationship grows and His love grows in us our lives become more like Jesus and our ability to love becomes more more like God's we will no longer be ruled by anger, self centeredness and fear because those things can't abide in perfect love. We will see all of our relationships around us change as well because we've been changed by God's very real, perfect love.

***Tomorrow we will look at relationships with other believers***

Recovery Christian Center Daily Meditation - 5/9/12 - Finding Real Joy

"Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice! Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do. Remember, the Lord is coming soon. Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you." Philippians 4:4-9 NLT

Every saved Christian and person in recovery should have the attitude that we didn't get saved and come into recovery to be miserable. While we may be cautioned about unrealistic expectations, we should have an expectation of finding joy in no longer having to live the way we used to live. Unfortunately too many of us are caught up in the guilt and shame of our past and our belief that we are just unworthy of being anything else but miserable. We spend so much time trying to make up for a forgiven and forgotten past, and trying to pay God back for a freely given GIFT!

While we are not discounting the need to learn from our past or the need to make amends and change our behavior, this doesn't mean we have to live in a constant state of miserable penance trying to make up and apologize for no longer being who we used to be. God has called us out to stand for joyfully for Him, not to live cowering in the dark on our bellies. He intends for us to have joy and peace, not misery and worry. As long as we are practicing what we have learned and are doing our best to apply the Word of God and the principles of recovery to our lives, it is not only OK to enjoy our new lives, it is an expectation from God Himself!

Recovery Christian Center Daily Meditation - 5/4/12 - You are what you say.

"Indeed, we all make many mistakes. For if we could control our tongues, we would be perfect and could also control ourselves in every other way. We can make a large horse go wherever we want by means of a small bit in its mouth. And a small rudder makes a huge ship turn wherever the pilot chooses to go, even though the winds are strong. In the same way, the tongue is a small thing that makes grand speeches. But a tiny spark can set a great forest on fire. And the tongue is a flame of fire. It is a whole world of wickedness, corrupting your entire body. It can set your whole life on fire, for it is set on fire by hell itself." James 3:2-6 NLT

On the train the other day a woman was overheard telling her husband, "I would have rather you slapped me that say what you just said to me." Her feelings prove that sometimes we cause much more harm with words than actions. An article in Psychology Today from some years ago stated that it took 10 positive things to counteract one negative one. All we need to do is look at the recent cases of cyber bullying that led to the suicide of some teenagers to see the overwhelming harm our tongues can cause. Speech has the power to kill or heal, and as Christ centered recovering people it is our responsibility to speak with His love. No healing comes from bashing or abusing or hating on anyone. Besides we, who God has brought out of the hell on earth that we had made of our lives and delivered from the real Hell we deserved, cannot afford to judge anybody. Even when we feel convicted to correct someone, we need not to tear them out the frame in order to do it. Correction is supposed to be loving as well. We are pointing out a mistake, not trying to make them feel like failures. We are what say, so show the world we are love by treating others with His loving kindness.

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Recovery Christian Center Daily Meditation - 5/2/12 - The Gift of Grace and Mercy

"Once we, too, were foolish and disobedient. We were misled and became slaves to many lusts and pleasures. Our lives were full of evil and envy, and we hated each other. But—“When God our Savior revealed his kindness and love, he saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit. He generously poured out the Spirit upon us through Jesus Christ our Savior. Because of his grace he declared us righteous and gave us confidence that we will inherit eternal life." Titus 3:3-7 NLT

Unfortunately one of the traps many recovering people can fall into is a sense of entitlement and the thinking that we are making this new way of life possible. We begin to think that we have earned our blessing and God us something because we are saved and in recovery. Nothing could be farther from the truth. We have forgotten that it God grace and mercy and Christ's sacrifice that all us to live this new life. Grace is simply receiving what we have not earned and mercy is not receiving what we truly earned. We must remember that what we truly earned was death because of how we were living before coming to Christ and into recovery. All of this is a gift that we could never possibly earn. Instead of a sense of entitlement we need to approach our new lives from humility due to the realization that if it hadn't been for God we would not be where we are.